When you think of Research In Motion (RIM) it’s hard not to think of mobile email which most would agree is the bread-and-butter of their business. RIM made its mark through the launch of its BlackBerry handhelds and complimentary BlackBerry service that allowed corporations to extend the ability to receive and send email to mobile devices.

As RIM entered the consumer market, once again its main focus was on the ability for users to send and receive email from their own personal accounts whether that be Gmail, Hotmail, AOL or another other type of third party service. That being said, it was strange that when RIM announced it was launching the PlayBook, the company’s first tablet computer, it would be missing the ability to directly connect to the BlackBerry service.

Apparently there is a very good reason why this core service was missing, and the answer is a technical one. Quite simply, the PlayBook doesn’t support email because RIM’s BlackBerry service model couldn’t support a user’s account across two devices–it’s just not part of the server design and something RIM never foresaw being required. The source for the report supposedly learned of this from a director of product management at BlackBerry World.

As a workaround, the PlayBook currently allows its owners the ability to create a secure Bluetooth link between the tablet and their BlackBerry smartphone thanks to functionality called the BlackBerry Bridge. This allows the PlayBook to have access to email, PIM apps and BlackBerry Messenger (BBM) through the handheld, but when the connection with the handheld is severed nothing is stored on the tablet and the apps are no longer accessible.

It seems that RIM has found some type of technical workaround for any constraints presented by the current BlackBerry email service architecture, but it’s been a long time in development. The company has announced that a native email and PIM app will be available for the PlayBook sometime this summer as detailed by a video demonstration of the upcoming app.